Planchets won't flow when water is low. Drought of 1836.
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
The flow of cent and half cent planchets was never entirely dependable for the Philadelphia Mint - not even when the supply was only a few miles away. Drought prevented Crocker Bros. from operating their water-powered machinery for rolling and cutting copper planchets.
October 8, 1836
We have been prevented executing your order for Planchets until this time, owing to the severe drought, but the machines being now in operation, we shall probably be able to give you about a ton per week, and in the course of next week, we expect to make you a shipment. I will send them along as we finish them as fast as possible.
Crocker Brothers & Co.
3
Comments
God willing and the creek does rise.
I guess it was better than what Dir. Patterson called "Blood-power" for presses.
That is fascinating information, and typical of the type of information that RogerB posts here based upon his extensive study of first-hand sources in the National Archives. I never would have made the connection between a drought and the supply of planchets to the Mint. Kudos to you, sir.
Thanks RB that adds some real life texture to the history of the Mint.
Manufacturing coins was work. Nasty, hot, grueling, boring labor for low pay and little chance of advancement. We forget, or are rarely cognizant of, how and why many ordinary things happened in daily life a hundred or hundred-fifty years ago. A local drought could bring canal commerce and water-powered mills to a halt. No flour, no formed metals, farmers cut from markets, ruined produce, and so forth.
There are other documents about planchets being lost or damaged before recovery from shipwrecks. Sometimes shipments and entire crews simply vanished below the central Atlantic.
I'm posting some of these letters in hopes of opening collector thoughts to the background of our coinage and of the national economy that produced it. For me, some of this came from research about Franklin Peale for a JNR issue, and came into better focus with research for From Mine to Mint. The present pattern and restriking investigation reveals as much about people as about the coins.
Anyway, it is hoped that members will enjoy these little posts and maybe pass them on to fellow collectors.
That may all be true but the liveliness of that age would be a major attraction, I for one would be willing to live in that era for several years if you could use a time machine to achieve that. I've been to Mt. Vernon and saw the workers quarters, it would have been a great honor to work for such a great man.
@RogerB .... I certainly appreciate these vignettes you post.... they lend insight into this facet of numismatics. While I am of an age that can relate to some of the contents, many here are much younger and they provide an insight of value to those interested in the far reaching avenues of numismatics. Cheers, RickO
Very cool!
Fascinating snapshot. Thanks. Little vignettes like this are fun.
This one reminds me of the "butterfly effect".
In this era of highways and air travel and instant communications, it's all too easy to take our lifestyle for granted and forget what challenges they might have faced a century or more ago.
How coins were made and the circumstances for why is the history part of my collecting. Every coin has a story. I tend to look at a coin and try to envision what times were like when it was struck. It adds to the "mystique" of a particular piece.
For me, it will always be that way.
Pete